Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (627 page)

(1948- )

A former fourth grade teacher and advertising copywriter, Nancy Kress started writing genre fiction to pass the time while pregnant with her second son; she sold her first story, “The Earth Dwellers,” to
Galaxy
in 1976. Although primarily a fantasy writer at first, as in her 1981 debut novel
The Prince of Morning Bells
, by the late 1980s Kress was writing mostly science fiction. She won her first Nebula in 1986, for “Out of All Them Bright Stars.”

In 1990, the same year she began writing full-time, Kress published the novella “Beggars in Spain,” which established Kress as a major SF writer and which won both the Hugo and Nebula. Since then she’s won two more Nebulas and another Hugo, as well as a Campbell Memorial Award and a Sturgeon Award.

Kress lives in Seattle with her third husband, author Jack Skillingstead. (Her second husband, SF writer Charles Sheffield, died of a brain tumor in 2002.) In addition to writing SF, she is a columnist for
Writer’s Digest
, and teaches writing at the Bethesda Writing Center.

First published in
Asimov’s Science Fiction
, June 2004

Fermi’s Paradox, California, 1950: Since planet formation appears to be common, and since the processes that lead to the development of life are a continuation of those that develop planets, and since the development of life leads to intelligence and intelligence to technology—then why hasn’t a single alien civilization contacted Earth?

Where is everybody?

*

They had agreed, laughing, on a form for the millennium contact, what Micah called “human standard,” although Kabil had insisted on keeping hirs konfol and Deb had not dissolved hirs crest, which waved three inches above hirs and hummed. But, then, Deb! Ling had designed floating baktor for the entire ship, red and yellow mostly, that combined and recombined in kaleidoscopic loveliness only Ling could have programmed. The viewport was set to magnify, the air mixture just slightly intoxicating, the tinglies carefully balanced by Cal, that master. Ling had wanted “natural” sleep cycles, but Cal’s argument had been more persuasive, and the tinglies massaged the limbic so pleasantly. Even the child had some. It was a party.

The ship slipped into orbit around the planet, a massive subJovian far from its sun, streaked with muted color.

“Lovely,” breathed Deb, who lived for beauty.

Cal, the biologist, was more practical: “I ran the equations; by now there should be around 200,000 of them in the rift, if the replication rate stayed constant.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” said Ling, the challenger, and the others laughed. The tinglies really were a good idea.

The child, Harrah, pressed hirs face to the window. “When can we land?”

The adults smiled at each other. They were so proud of Harrah, and so careful. Hirs was the first gene-donate for all of them except Micah, and probably the only one for the rest except Cal, who was a certified intellect donor. Kabil knelt beside Harrah, bringing hirs face to the child’s height.

“Little love, we can’t land. Not here. We must see the creations in holo.”

“Oh,” Harrah said, with the universal acceptance of childhood. It had not changed in five thousand years, Ling was fond of remarking, that child idea that whatever it lived was the norm. But, then…Ling.

“Access the data,” Cal said, and Harrah obeyed, reciting it aloud as hirs parents had all taught hirs. Ling smiled to see that Harrah still closed hirs eyes to access, but opened them to recite.

“The creations were dropped on this planet 273 E-years ago. They were the one-hundred-fortieth drop in the Great Holy Mission that gives us our life. The creations were left in a closed-system rift…what does that mean?”

“The air in the creations’ valley doesn’t get out to the rest of the planet, because the valley is so deep and the gravity so great. They have their own air.”

“Oh. The creations are cyborged replicators, programmed for self-awareness. They are also programmed to expect human contact at the millennium. They…”

“Enough,” said Kabil, still kneeling beside Harrah. He stroked hirs hair, black today. “The important thing, Harrah, is that you remember that these creations are beings, different from us but with the same life force, the only life force. They must be respected, just as people are, even if they look odd to you.”

“Or if they don’t know as much as you,” said Cal. “They won’t, you know.”

“I know,” Harrah said. They had made hirs an accommodater, with strong genes for bonding. They already had Ling for challenge. Harrah added, “Praise Fermi and Kwang and Arlbeni for the emptiness of the universe.”

Ling frowned. Hirs had opposed teaching Harrah the simpler, older folklore of the Great Mission. Ling would have preferred that the child receive only truth, not religion. But Deb had insisted. Feed the imagination first, hirs had said, and later Harrah can separate science from prophecy. But the tinglies felt sweet, and the air mixture was set for a party, and hirs own baktors floated in such graceful pattern that Ling, not even Ling, could not quarrel.

“I wonder,” Deb said dreamily, “what they have learned in 273 years.”

“When will they holo?” Harrah said. “Are we there yet?”

* * * *

Our mother is coming.

Two hours more and they will come, from beyond the top of the world. When they come, there will be much dancing. Much rejoicing. All of us will dance, even those who have detached and let the air carry them away. Those ones will receive our transmissions and dance with us.

Or maybe our mother will also transmit to where those of us now sit. Maybe they will transmit to all, even those colonies out of our own transmission range. Why not? Our mother, who made us, can do whatever is necessary.

First, the dancing. Then, the most necessary thing of all. Our mother will solve the program flaw. Completely, so that no more of us will die. Our mother doesn’t die. We are not supposed to die, either. Our mother will transmit the program to correct this.

Then the dancing there will be!

* * * *

Kwang’s Resolution, Bohr Station, 2552: Since the development of the Quantum Transport, humanity has visited nearly a thousand planets in our galaxy and surveyed many more. Not one of them has developed any life of any kind, no matter how simple. Not one.

No aliens have contacted Earth because there is nobody else out there.

* * * *

Harrah laughed in delight. Hirs long black hair swung through a drift of yellow baktors. “The creations look like oysters!”

The holocube showed uneven rocky ground through thick, murky air. A short distance away rose the abrupt, steep walls of the rift, thousands of feet high. Attached to the ground by thin, flexible, mineral-conducting tubes were hundreds of uniform, metal-alloy double shells. The shells held self-replicating nanomachinery, including the rudimentary AI, and living eukaryotes sealed into selectively permeable membranes. The machinery ran on the feeble sunlight and on energy produced by anaerobic bacteria, carefully engineered for the thick atmospheric stew of methane, hydrogen, helium, ammonia, and carbon dioxide.

The child knew none of this. Hirs saw the “oysters” jumping up in time on their filaments, jumping and falling, flapping their shells open and closed, twisting and flapping and bobbing. Dancing.

Kabil laughed, too. “Nowhere in the original programming! They learned it!”

“But what could the stimulus have been?” Ling said. “How lovely to find out!”

“Sssshhh, we’re going to transmit,” Micah said. Hirs eyes glowed. Micah was the oldest of them all; hirs had been on the original drop. “Seeding 140, are you there?”

“We are here! We are Seeding 140! Welcome, our mother!”

Harrah jabbed hirs finger at the holocube. “We’re not your mother!”

Instantly Deb closed the transmission. Micah said harshly, “Harrah! Your manners!”

The child looked scared. Deb said, “Harrah, we talked about this. The creations are not like us, but their ideas are as true as ours, on their own world. Don’t laugh at them.”

From Kabil, “Don’t you remember, Harrah? Access the learning session!”

“I…remember,” Harrah faltered.

“Then show some respect!” Micah said. “This is the Great Mission!”

Harrah’s eyes teared. Kabil, the tender-hearted, put hirs hand on Harrah’s shoulder. “Small heart, the Great Mission gives meaning to our lives.”

“I…know…”

Micah said, “You don’t want to be like those people who just use up all their centuries in mere pleasure, with no structure to their wanderings across the galaxy, no purpose beyond seeing what the nanos can produce that they haven’t produced before, no difference between today and tomorrow, no—”

“That’s sufficient,” Ling says. “Harrah understands, and regrets. Don’t give an Arlbeni Day speech, Micah.”

Micah said stiffly, “It matters, Ling.”

“Of course it matters. But so do the creations, and they’re waiting. Deb, open the transmission again.…Seeding 140, thank you for your welcome! We return!”

* * * *

Arlbeni’s Vision, Planet Cadrys, 2678: We have been fools.

Humanity is in despair. Nano has given us everything, and nothing. Endless pleasures empty of effort, endless tomorrows empty of purpose, endless experiences empty of meaning. From evolution to sentience, sentience to nano, nano to the decay of sentience.

But the fault is ours. We have overlooked the greatest gift ever given humanity: the illogical emptiness of the universe. It is against evolution, it is against known physical processes. Therefore, how can it exist? And why?

It can exist only by the intent of something greater than the physical processes of the universe. A conscious Intent.

The reason can only be to give humanity, the universe’s sole inheritor, knowledge of this Intent. The emptiness of the universe—anomalous, unexplainable, impossible—has been left for us to discover, as the only convincing proof of God.

* * * *

Our mother has come! We dance on the seabed. We transmit the news to the ones who have detached and floated away. We rejoice together, and consult the original program.

“You are above the planetary atmosphere,” we say, new words until just this moment, but now understood. All will be understood now, all corrected. “You are in a ship, as we are in our shells.”

“Yes,” our mother says. “You know we cannot land.”

“Yes,” we say, and there is momentary dysfunction. How can they help us if they cannot land? But only momentary. This is our mother. And they landed us here once, didn’t they? They can do whatever is necessary.

Our mother says, “How many are you now, Seeding 140?”

“We are 79,432,” we say. Sadness comes. We endure it, as we must.

Our mother’s voice changes in wavelength, in frequency. “Seventy-nine thousand? Are you…we had calculated more. Is this replication data right?”

A packet of data arrives. We scan it quickly; it matches our programming.

“The data is correct, our mother. That is the rate of replication. But…” We stop. It feels like another dying ceremony, suddenly, and it is not yet time for a dying ceremony. We will wait another few minutes; we will tell our mother in another few minutes. Instead, we ask, “What is your rate of replication, our mother?”

Another change in wavelength and frequency. We scan and match data, and it is in our databanks: laughter, a form of rejoicing. Our mother rejoices.

“You aren’t equipped for visuals, or I would show you our replicant,” our mother says. “But the rate is much, much lower than yours. We have one new replicant with us on the ship.”

“Welcome, new replicant!” we say, and there is more rejoicing. There, and here.

* * * *

“I’ve restricted transmission…there’s the t-field’s visual,” Micah said.

A hazy cloud appeared to one side of the holocube, large enough to hold two people comfortably, three close together. Only words spoken inside the field would now transmit. Baktors scuttled clear of the ionized haze. Deb stepped inside the field, with Harrah; Cal moved out of it. Hirs frowned at Micah.

“They can’t be only 79,000-plus if the rate of replication has held steady. Check the resource data, Micah.”

“Scanning…No change in available raw materials…no change in sunlight per square unit.”

“Scan their counting program.”

“I already did. Fully functional.”

“Then run an historical scan of replicants created.”

“That will take time…there, it’s started. What about attrition?”

Cal said, “Of course. I should have thought of that. Do a seismic survey and match it with the original data. A huge quake could easily have destroyed two-thirds of them, poor seedings…”

Ling said, “You could ask them.”

Kabil said, “If it’s not a cultural taboo. Remember, they have had time to evolve a culture, we left them that ability.”

“Only in response to environmental stimuli. Would a quake or mudslide create enough stimulus pressure to evolve death taboos?”

They looked at each other. Something new in the universe, something humanity had not created…this was why they were here! Their eyes shone, their breaths came faster. Yet they were uncomfortable, too, at the mention of death. How long since any of them.…oh, yes, Ling’s clone, in that computer malfunction, but so many decades ago…Discomfort, excitement, compassion for Seeding 140, yes compassion most of all, how terrible if the poor creations had actually lost so many in a quake…All of them felt it, and meant it, the emotion was genuine. And in their minds the finger of God touched each for a moment, with the holiness of the tiny human struggle against the emptiness of the universe.

“Praise Fermi and Kwang and Arlbeni…” one of them murmured, and no one was sure who, in the general embarrassment that took them a moment later. They were not children.

Micah said, “Match the seismic survey with the original data,” and moved off to savor alone the residue of natural transcendence, rarest and strangest of the few things nano could not provide.

Inside the hazy field Harrah said, “Seeding! I am dancing just like you!” and moved hirs small body back and forth, up and down on the ship’s deck.